Turns out Google did give something away at I/O 2016, but it's not what anyone expected

Turns out Google did give something away at I/O 2016, but it’s not what anyone expected

Google I/O is a lot of fun for developers, but let’s be honest: part of the reason many go is to get stuff. In years past, Google has gifted developers with computers, phones and wearables. This year, not so much. The event wrapped up Friday, but a Saturday email from Google detailed its giveaway for I/O 2016. Instead of hardware, developers were gifted with $500 in Cloud Platform credit. So. Much. Tech. Some of the biggest names in tech are coming to TNW Conference in Amsterdam this May. Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is the same engine many of its own products are built on, and gives developers closer ties to Google’s analytics and machine learning. For a developer, there’s not much GCP can’t do. But it feels a bit like…